Thefive techniques, also known asdeep interrogation, were a group of interrogation methods developed by the United Kingdom during the 20th century and are currently regarded as a form oftorture. They are most notable for being applied to detainees in Northern Ireland duringthe Troubles.
The five collective methods wereprolonged wall-standing,hooding,subjection to noise,deprivation of sleep, anddeprivation of food and drink.[1]
The use of the techniques was controversial, and in 1972 the UK government accepted the findings of an inquiry chaired byLord Parker, theLord Chief Justice of England that the techniques were illegal under British and Northern Irish law and issued directives prohibiting their use.
In 1976, theEuropean Commission of Human Rights ruled that the five techniques amounted totorture. The case was then referred to theEuropean Court of Human Rights. In 1978, the court ruled that the techniques were "inhuman and degrading" and breachedArticle 3 of theEuropean Convention on Human Rights but did not amount to torture. In 2014, after new information was uncovered that showed the decision to use the five techniques in Northern Ireland in 1971–1972 had been taken by ministers,[2] theIrish Government asked the European Court of Human Rights to review its judgement. In 2018, the Court declined.
In 2021, theSupreme Court of the United Kingdom found that the use of the five techniques amounted to torture.
The five techniques were first used in Northern Ireland in 1971 as part ofOperation Demetrius – the mass arrest andinternment of people ostensibly suspected of involvement with theProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Out of those arrested, fourteen were selected not for any suspected involvement but purely on the basis of physical condition and subjected to a programme of "deep interrogation" using the five techniques. This took place atShackleton Barracks, a secret interrogation centre in Northern Ireland.
For seven days, when not being interrogated, the detainees were kepthooded and handcuffed in a cold cell and subjected to a continuous loud hissing noise. Here they were forced to stand in astress position for many hours and were deprived of sleep, food, and drink. They were also repeatedly beaten, and some reported being kicked in the genitals, having their heads banged against walls, and being threatened with injections. The effect was prolonged pain, physical and mental exhaustion, severe anxiety, depression, hallucinations, disorientation, and repeated loss of consciousness.[3][4] It also resulted in long-termpsychological trauma.
The fourteen became known as "the Hooded Men" and were the only detainees in Northern Ireland subjected to all five techniques together. Other detainees were subjected to at least one of the five techniques along with other interrogation methods.[5]
In response to the public and Parliamentary disquiet on 16 November 1971, the Government commissioned a committee of inquiry chaired byLord Parker, theLord Chief Justice of England to look into the legal and moral aspects of the use of the five techniques.
The "Parker Report"[6] was published on 2 March 1972, and had found the five techniques to be illegal under domestic law:
10. Domestic Law ...(c) We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorised the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.
On the same day (2 March 1972), theUnited Kingdom Prime MinisterEdward Heath stated in theHouse of Commons:
[The] Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques ... will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation... The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.
Directives expressly prohibiting the use of the techniques, whether singly or in combination, were then issued to the security forces by the Government.[7] These are still in force and the use of such methods by UK security forces would not be condoned by the Government.
TheIrish Government, on behalf of the men who had been subject to the five methods, took a case to theEuropean Commission on Human Rights.[8] The Commission stated that it"considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation "directly affects the personality physically and mentally"; and (2) "the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages... a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems... applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions".[8][9][10]
The commission's findings were appealed. In 1978, in theEuropean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trialIreland v. United Kingdom (5310/71) [1978] ECHR 1, the facts were not in dispute and the judges court published the following in their judgement:
These methods, sometimes termed "disorientation" or "sensory deprivation" techniques, were not used in any cases other than the fourteen so indicated above. It emerges from theCommission's establishment of the facts that the techniques consisted of:
- wall-standing: forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a "stress position", described by those who underwent it as being "spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers";
- hooding: putting a black or navy coloured bag over the detainees' heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation;
- subjection to noise: pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise;
- deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees of sleep;
- deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the centre and pending interrogations.[11]
These were referred to by the court as thefive techniques. The court ruled:
- ... Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically,they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood. ...
- The Court concludes that recourse to the five techniquesamounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, which practice was in breach of [theEuropean Convention on Human Rights]Article 3 (art. 3).[12]
On 8 February 1977, in proceedings before the ECHR, and in line with the findings of the Parker report and United Kingdom Government policy,Samuel Silkin, theAttorney General for England and Wales andAttorney General for Northern Ireland, stated that
The Government of the United Kingdom have considered the question of the use of the 'five techniques' with very great care and with particular regard to Article 3 (art. 3) of the Convention. They now give this unqualified undertaking, that the 'five techniques' will not in any circumstances be reintroduced as an aid to interrogation.[13]
On 2 December 2014, theMinister for Foreign Affairs and TradeCharles Flanagan announced that the Irish Government had asked European Court of Human Rights to revise its judgment[14] following evidence uncovered by anRTÉ documentary calledThe Torture Files.[15]
In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights decided not to revise its judgment by six votes to one.[16]
The Court's ruling that the five techniques did not amount to torture was later internally cited by the United States to justify its own interrogation methods,[17] which included the five techniques.[18] British agents also taught the five techniques to the forces ofBrazil's military dictatorship.[19]
During theIraq War, the illegal use of the five techniques byBritish service members contributed to thedeath of Baha Mousa.[20][21]
In 2021, theSupreme Court of the United Kingdom found that the use of the five techniques amounts to torture.[22]
